04/02/2026
We recently did this cool thing. Among his many talents, Bear was a classically trained ballet dancer. So we got to thinking, what if the Grateful Dead experience could be presented as a contemporary dance?
We collaborated with Attack Theatre, a modern dance ensemble, to present a world-premiere dance performance titled "Once In A While" with original choreography inspired and powered by the music of the Grateful Dead. The sound design created an immersive sonic experience incorporating live recordings, crowd sounds from the scene, stage banter from the band, psychedelic sounds, and more. It felt like a Dead show but with Bear's story of the struggles to achieve the highest standards of sound reinforcement at the center. The dance was broken into two sets, mirroring the traditional flow of a Grateful Dead concert, with the choreography becoming more adventurous and exploratory in the second set (there were even grilled cheese sandwiches during set break).
The choreography was impressively physical, clever, and nostalgic. Some of the highlights included: a passionate, high-energy duet on a narrow balcony to “Scarlet Begonias,” a "Dark Star" kaleidoscope of intertwined bodies, a dystopian male duet performed to “Morning Dew” among the detritus after an evening storm ripped through a parking lot (after Jerry says, “You won’t melt, you’re not made of sugar!”), a poignant solo to “Box of Rain” under a cascade of water, and a “Samson and Delilah” finale where dancers swung, dove, leapt, and slid down the backstage scaffolding of the Wall of Sound. Each night there was also an improvisational section performed to a different song (“Ramble On Rose,” “Help On the Way,” or “Birdsong”), with the choreography inspired by specific lyrics selected through audience participation.
As creative advisors to the production, in addition to consulting on the repertoire and history, OSF provided unreleased banter from the band with the audience and crew, including Bear. These exchanges often reflected the challenges of achieving high-fidelity sound reinforcement in the early days before the technology became what concert-goers now take for granted. As the band moved into bigger and bigger venues, getting crisp, clean sound to every seat in the house was not easy. It often led to delays that required great patience from both the artists and the audience. This became a central theme of the production — i.e., that sound reinforcement was a vehicle for bridging the gap between the artists and the audience to help build a lasting community. The crew and soundman’s role was pivotal to achieving this gestalt, and Bear understood it as a sacred responsibility.
One of the dancers even played Owsley, field-stripping speakers and soldering connections in the middle of a performance, trying to make everything just exactly perfect in an imperfect situation.
Perhaps this is another rich and unexpected example of the way the music of the Grateful Dead continues to inspire new interpretations and creativity, contributing to the 300 year legacy that Bob Weir imagined. The six performances saw an interesting mix of Deadheads, who knew nothing about modern dance, coming together with Danceheads, who knew little about the Dead. It was a truly lovely cross-pollination as each enthusiastically came away with a greater appreciation of the other.
Before the final performance, OSF presented a curated listening session, dosing the ears of about 70 attendees on rare unreleased gems from Bear’s legendary archive.
As Starfinder noted, this production combined two of the things Bear loved most: the music of the Grateful Dead and dance. So this unique collaboration was especially on-mission for OSF as a legacy project. It was also a poetic reminder that "once in a while, you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right."
